Super Mario 3D World's Double Mario power was an accident

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And other tidbits from the development team

The end of the recent Iwata Asks about Super Mario 3D World made it clear that more Super Mario Galaxy is a definite possibility, which was probably the biggest news of the piece — but there are other behind-the-scenes tidbits worth highlighting. Here are some of my favorites:

  • Before the Cat Mario power-up was fully realized, characters would run around on all fours in their normal costumes. “I became really worried when I saw that,” said producer Yoshiaki Koizumi. “I couldn’t keep my eyes on Princess Peach! It was like a scene from a horror movie.”
  • The Double Mario concept was a happy accident. The team had previously thought that controlling multiple characters at once would prove too challenging for players, but when “a staff member made a mistake with the placement tool and put in two player Marios,” the end result turned out to be surprisingly great.
  • Talking about how cute Cat Toad is compared to his normal plain-looking self, Nintendo president Shigeru Iwata said “Yeah. It may be rude to his fans to say it like this, but Toad is a surprisingly popular character.” Poor Toad.
  • We already knew that Super Mario Galaxy‘s Rosalina is an unlockable character, but apparently she can turn into a black cat using the cat power-up.
  • The Luigi Bros. arcade game can be unlocked immediately for players with New Super Luigi U save data. Also, there are hidden pixel Luigis running around 3D World.
  • There’s been a desire to have Mario and Luigi together in a 3D game like this since Super Mario 64. When we made the first prototype, Mario and Luigi were on a flat field,” explained Koizumi. “We ran it that way, but when we made the landforms, because of hardware limitations we had a choice between cutting Luigi or making more elaborate landforms. Then, in tears, we had to ask Luigi to leave.”

Above all else, I think director Kenta Motokura’s policy of “Let’s put everything in” best sums up why Super Mario 3D World looks like such a return to form. Only a week to go.

Iwata Asks [Nintendo]